Before transferring to Virginia Tech to play football in 2010, Fuller spent two years as a track and field athlete at Kansas. His best events were the triple jump and the long jump, and he also sprinted.

He hopes that training comes in handy as he looks to develop into a big-play NFL receiver.

"He flashes just about everything that you need, he needs more consistency, like a lot of these guys," Lions coach Jim Schwartz said. "But he can make a play, we've seen enough of that to know that he has that ability."

Fuller had originally planned on walking on to the Jayhawks football team while running track, but decided not to after the program changed coaches.

After his sophomore year, he took the opportunity to transfer and join the Hokies football team that included his younger brother, Kyle.

He played in 19 games over his two-year Virginia Tech career, amassing 815 receiving yards and six touchdowns last season with a 19 yards per catch average.

That was enough to make him a Lions sixth-round pick and one of 50 players in last weekend's rookie minicamp. He turned heads by making a few deep caches on day one, Schwartz said.

"He doesn't have a lot of football background, because he spent two years triple jumping and long jumping, but he certainly has a good skill set, and he's a hard worker," Schwartz said.

Fuller was one of several players in the team's rookie camp with thin football experience. First-round pick Ezekiel Ansah has played only three years of football after walking on at BYU. Free agent linebacker Alex Elkins showed up to a tryout at Blinn College a few years ago to try football for the first time. And kicker Håvard Rugland didn't put on a helmet before Friday.

As he continues to develop, Fuller wants to show he can be more than just a big-play threat.

"Stretching the field vertically, I think everybody knows I can do that," Fuller said. "Everybody knows I have speed, I can run vertical all day. I also want to show them that I can come out of my break on a curl route."

While Fuller might not have played as much college football as many other players in camp, he has good bloodlines. His older brother, Vincent Fuller, spent five years in the NFL, four years with the Tennessee Titans and one with the Lions. Schwartz coached him at both places, and the younger Fuller immediately found himself with a few nicknames in Allen Park: Little Fuller or Little Vinny.

"The first day I walked in here I'm like 'Wow, this is where Vinny, he was doing his thing at,'" Fuller said. "A lot of the coaches, they either coached him here at Detroit or they coached him in Tennessee. His name is everywhere I've been going."